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Do You Think You Can Teach Our Students?

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By Jacqueline M. Sage

Having a Ph.D. from an Ivy League university can open some doors for you, but it can also close others.

In this past academic year, as I've pursued my first tenure-track job in the social sciences, I have been told numerous times to expect some level of bias at certain types of institutions against candidates from the Ivy League.

If you're going to apply to small teaching colleges or community colleges, people have told me, you need to face the possibility that your degree will land you in the decline pile. The same goes for any college or university thought to be less prestigious than the ones people presume your degree qualifies you for. The presumption by those hiring committees is that you will leave within a year or two for a better position and that wasting a search on you is a bad choice.

That might be true because the only interest my application attracted this year was from institutions in the same status bracket as the one that awarded my Ph.D. I am hoping that that was just a coincidence, however, since many of the colleges where I would like to teach, and where I applied this year, are exactly the kind of teaching institution I was warned against.

My dilemma got more complicated when a position in my field opened up at a local community college with a reputation for attracting "better" students. In deciding whether to apply, I found myself asking: Can I teach community college students effectively given my education at privileged institutions?

I had thought that my upbringing would help me relate to students both at community colleges and at the state university where I have been teaching as a lecturer. After all, I come from the same urban, working-class background as many of the students -- with one glaring exception.

I was the self-motivated overachiever who ended up in the Ivy League. I may have worked my way through school, holding two jobs in addition to a full course load, but I also ended up in graduate school rather than a practical profession. I am already committed to learning and, particularly, to a type of learning with which many of the students at community colleges and at my state university are unfamiliar.

I don't teach my courses purely so that students can master a certain set of materials and emerge with "facts," although they do both. Rather, I structure my courses to teach students how to think critically and argue logically about social issues. It's an approach that students at more elite universities simply take for granted as the proper structure of a course. The same is not true of my state-university students, who constantly ask me, "Why are we learning this?"

I do not think of myself as biased against certain types of students, but I have begun to wonder if my skill set would be the best to help students at two-year colleges. In my mind, I know that they deserve the same education as students at more privileged institutions, but will my knowledge and expertise serve them well?

For those community-college students who would transfer to a four-year track, the answer is most likely yes. But for those who, as the job description put it, are pursuing short tracks in "hospitality, criminal justice, etc.," one can only assume that thinking abstractly is a plus, but is it central to their needs? Yes, I could improve their writing and critical-thinking skills over all, but would my subject matter, which is largely theoretical, help them achieve their goals?

In addition, I began to ask myself whether I could be happy teaching courses geared toward a more practical level of knowledge rather than philosophical principles and the evolution of ideas. I didn't think I could. I could only imagine my boredom, notwithstanding the good days when normative ideals would work themselves into my lectures.

And even if I could get used to teaching at a more practical level, I already faced a communication and expectations dilemma at the state university where I teach and to which many of those same community-college students would transfer. Not only did many of my students complain about the workload, but I had some who thought my vocabulary was too difficult, my expectations too high, and my style of teaching unclear because I tended to ask questions within my lectures and considered multiple authors in one argument rather than going in a strictly linear mode from author to author.

If I already face obstacles in the classroom at a state university, I reasoned, how much worse would it be at a community college?

In the end, I decided not to apply for the opening. Although I felt that I had requisite qualifications and could certainly put together a decent course designed to take into account the different skill sets of the students, I knew I would probably not be the best choice and I had to be honest with myself about that even if it meant facing the possibility that I would not find a tenure-track job this year.

I think my courses at the state university are well structured both in content and the assignments, notwithstanding the complaints from students, and my colleagues seem to think so as well. I got a good review of my first year teaching here even though my ratings from students were not as strong as those from my earlier teaching position at my doctoral institution. I also think that many of my students have learned from my approach, even if it has been painful for them and me at times.

One of my students recently mentioned that he used to look down on the state university because it was not top-ranked. He told me that after taking my class, he no longer felt that way because he thought I had asked a lot of him, and although he was not happy about it most of the time, he concluded that he had received a level of education he could be proud of. Similar comments from other students and on my evaluations suggest that I am getting something right.

There are those students who will rise to a challenge, and those who will not, but my hope is that all students will feel they have learned something about what they are capable of and about how they are truly able to compete on the same level with students at more privileged institutions.

My shorthand answer for those students who complained about the work load and readings, and about being treated as if they were students from my previous doctoral institution (or so several accusingly argued), is this: You will have to compete with those same people whether you are prepared to or not. In addition -- I'll admit my bias here -- I think knowledge, and the skills to acquire and assess that knowledge, are good things.

However, for all those students who performed well and emerged from my courses feeling good about the material and their performance, there were also those who felt my courses were too difficult. One student commented on an evaluation that she felt stupid every time she walked into my class. That was not the reaction I was aiming for, and it truly saddened me.

My hope is that I've learned something this year about my own limitations and how to remedy them. And one day, if I do get an interview at a community college and am asked -- as I was during the interview for the position I hold now, "Do you think you can teach our students?" -- I will be able to answer confidently as I did then: Yes.